I am supporting the the Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs Round 2 plan for CDBG housing assistance for…
A honest critique of media foreclosure prevention pablum
My friend and sometimes colleague Robert Doggett eviscerates an example of the typical advice story the media dishes out to…
Texas Teachers Retirement Fund speculates in subprime mortgage backed securities
Demonstrating poor judgment the Texas Teacher’s Retirement Fund announced it is planning to invest $250 million of retirement funds of…
Save the TX State Affordable Housing Corporation by giving it a new mission
On Tuesday, June 24 the Texas Sunset Commission will meet to make a recommendation to the next Texas Legislature whether…
Home builders object and Austin backs away from housing visitability requirements
June 18 was not an auspicious day in Austin housing rights history. Shortly before voting to adopt the anemic affordable…
City of Austin’s affordable housing initiative fizzles out
An Austin City Council affordable housing initiative fizzled out early June 19 as the Council voted to adopt a PUD…
Curbing substandard housing in rural Texas
Watch John Henneberger’s testimony before the Texas Seante International Relations and Trade Committee on substandard rural housing. Read my written…
City of Austin staff proposes housing cuts of over $6 million
My colleague, Karen Paup stays up to date on all the Austin housing issues and she has pointed out an…
House flippers and scam artists prey on Houston poor
House flippers and scam artists prey upon low income Texans as they desperately struggle to find a home or try…
Disgraceful indifference to substandard conditions in Houston
In an outstanding piece of investigative journalism Houston Chronicle staff writers Matt Stiles, Mike Snyder and Julio Cortez have exposed…
An important role for state legislatures in the foreclosure crisis
Financial Institutions Committee Chairman Burt Solomon is reasonable and fair in approaching the issue of state regulation of financial institutions.…
One perspective on the Texas foreclosure crisis
View Dr. James Gaines presentation [it takes a couple minutes to begin playing] before the Texas House financial institutions committee…
Dealing (or not) with the foreclosure crisis in Texas
Watch Robert Doggett’s testimony before the Financial Services Committee, or better yet watch the entire hearing. On Wednesday Robert Doggett,…
National fixes for post disaster housing programs
I have posted the testimony I presented to Congress regarding how the federal government can betterprovide long-term housing disaster assistance…
Understanding the role of GSEs, HUD and affordable housing in the subprime crisis
A page 1 story in the Washingtom Post Tuesday laid a major part of the blame for the subprime lending…
At least we are better off than Mississippi and Alabama
Watch my testimony before the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity of the House Financial Service Committee, or, better yet,…
Inclusionary zoning: background
After yesterday’s posting in which I discussed the use of inclusionary zoning several people asked me what inclusionary zoning is…
Recommendations for state action to prevent displacement of low income people from gentrifying neighborhoods
A group of us have been kicking around ideas to address the problem of the involuntary displacement of low income…
Cleaning house at the state
The June 5, 2008 compliance hearing video is 60 minutes. It provides a very useful overview of the issues surrounding…
Let’s expand self-help housing across Texas
Texas has several of the nation’s leading self-help housing nonprofits who have been tremendously successful in producing highly cost-efficient self-help…
Texas tempts fate and courts disaster
Is it that we Texans like living dangerously? Are we just slow to learn? Or are we the victims of…
TxLIHIS testimony on Senate housing studies
In an earlier post I listed the various studies related to housing being conducted by Texas Senate Committees during the…
FEMA and HUD: not who you would want to depend on to throw you a life preserver
The House Financial Services Committee called HUD and FEMA to testify about when the lead federal agencies for hurricane relief…
Farewell Kristin
After four years of dedicated work for the cause of promoting housing for the poor, Kristin Carlisle, development director and Housing Texas…
Texas House of Representatives studies housing
Two days ago I posted the interim studies being conducted on housing by the Texas Senate. Let’s expand that list…
Do Texas cities care about gentrification?
The problem of the displacement of low-income families from long-established inner city neighborhoods has become a major issue in the…
TX Senate studies housing
In the previous post Karen Paup brought up the inclusionary zoning issue at the Texas Legislature. I pointed out that…
Inclusionary zoning redux
The Texas Legislature last session made inclusionary zoning unlawful except in very limited circumstances. Inclusionary zoning is an essential tool…
We have not learned the lessons of Katrina
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina we wondered what we could do to help. We settled on four things: 1)…
32 years in low income housing in Texas
I started my involvement with low income housing and community development in 1975. As a junior at the University of…